Controlled, distant and emotionless - no hint of a tear yet - Lance Armstrong
could have been talking about another rider on the Oprah Winfrey show this
morning, rather than himself.

As feared, he told us exactly what he wanted to tell us. It was and is a PR exercise, pure and simple, but then we knew that. The lies and the evasiveness continue.

If Lance Armstrong really cared about the sport he professes to still love he would be sat with US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) or World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) officials in a hotel right now, working around the clock to tell them absolutely everything he knows and did. He would offer to put everything on the record and swear on oath if necessary.

There was the one big admission that even he could not avoid a minute longer: that all seven of his Tour de France victories were built on a cocktail of drugs, mostly the blood-booster EPO and testosterone. At least we now have that on the record forever and a day. At least the lingering "believers" now have it from the horse's mouth. Middle America will be shocked but the rest of the world made their minds up the moment the USADA's reasoned decision was released last October.

That one big admission will certainly cost him money. He will have to repay his bonus settlements now - estimated at $12 million - and a perjury charge may also follow after he denied doping under oath in 2005 when the insurance company SCA queried the payments.

But that was it. He did the bare minimum. Still no names, details, specifics and often no genuine remorse. No insight into how he got into doping, no information on who supplied the drugs, how they were paid for and who footed that bill. Was it the team, sponsors or individuals? Who administered the drugs and who monitored the training when doping? Throughout this period his good friend Johan Bruyneel would have been present as his directeur sportif at both US Postal and Discovery.

Was he involved or wasn't he? Armstrong knows, but won't tell us. He knows everything about the involvement of Dr Michele Ferrari but he tells us nothing. He continues to mock the cycling world.

In fairness to Oprah Winfrey, she asked some decent questions and had done her homework. Her reputation was on the line as well. In fact, she was almost over-prepared. She prepared 112 questions ahead of the interview, but sometimes awkward lingering silences are best.

Winfrey sped through the accusations when occasionally she should have let him stew under the hot lights and contemplate the enormity of the situation. She started talking over him when she should have eased back and let Armstrong talk himself into areas he didn't intend to go.

At the start of the interview she badgered him for simple "yes/no" answers, and while they drew out the "big" admissions, they actually let him off the hook. Open questions would have been better.

Armstrong's horribly premeditated use of the dictionary to spell out the definition of "cheating" was undoubtedly the low point of the interview, although his well paid lawyers probably think it was their cleverest ploy: "The definition of cheat is to gain an advantage on a rival or foe that they don't have," said Armstrong. "I didn't view it that way. I viewed it as a level playing field."

Really? A 41-year-old career athlete has to look in the dictionary to define cheating? Absolutely pathetic, and a huge own goal which calls into doubt everything he said in the show.

That cringeworthy denial explains why we waited in vain for an abject apology to the riders in his generation who rode clean and tried to preserve the dignity of the sport. He assumes that everybody is warped and like him. God help us.

So what have we really learned? What has he admitted to and what has he dodged?

For me, the most striking thing was his failure to finger the UCI and some of their officials. There were strong hints during the week that Armstrong would name and shame officials who were allegedly complicit in his crimes, but those charges did not come.

In fact, he flatly denied the alleged positive test at the Tour de Suisse, denied any clandestine meetings with officials from the testing laboratory and also denied that the subsequent donation of $125,000 to the UCI in 2002 was in any way a bribe.

"That story isn't true. There was no positive test, there was no paying off of the lab there was no secret meeting with the lab director," he pleaded. "This is impossible for me to answer this question and have anybody believe it. It was not in exchange for any cover up. And again I am not a fan of the UCI. I have every incentive to sit here and tell you 'yes, that's right.'"

Armstrong also insisted that he last doped on the 2005 Tour de France, his seventh straight win, and that he rode clean in the 2009 and 2010 Tours on his ill-advised comeback.

That is significant for all sorts of reasons, not least because the UCI's current president, Pat McQuaid, did not start until 2006. If we are to believe Armstrong, McQuaid can now reiterate his claims that there was no collusion with Armstrong on his watch. USADA will urgently want this revisited. Although Armstrong yielded no positive tests at the time during the 2009 and 2010 Tours, the USADA's reasoned decision insists that a number of his samples, when later retested with improved technology, were positive.

Armstrong even indirectly goes in to bat for former UCI president Hein Verbruggen, insisting that it was relatively easy to avoid giving a positive test in those years when he won because there was no out-of-competition and random testing. We are asked to believe there was no collusion or tip offs. Beating the testers, he said, was simply a matter of scheduling - doping at training and in camp, but ensuring you turn up at the races clean.

It has to be said that very few riders other than Tyler Hamilton - who tested positive three times during his career - got caught either, by either the UCI or USADA, so perhaps there is an element of truth in that. Testing was in its infancy and many other top riders, including most of his former colleagues and leading opponents, escaped undetected at the time.

Armstrong denied being the ringleader of the US Postal and Discovery doping ring and forcing the doping culture on fellow riders, although he admitted to being a natural bully, something which Betsy Andreu, wife of his former colleague Frankie, had no truck with after the interview.

"He was co-owner of the team, decided who was hired, fired, who got paid what. He was cosying up to politicians, the governing bodies. It's completely disingenuous and a way of distancing himself of being the leader." she said.

Again, Armstrong knows the absolute truth here and he was coming nowhere near to revealing it.

The only time I detected any genuine regret was when talking about his bullying behaviour towards former US Postal masseur Emma O'Reilly, who he ridiculed and then sued when she spoke of his doping.

"She's one of these people that I have to apologise to," he said "She's one of those people who got run over. Got bullied."

Extraordinarily, however, he grinned when questioned about the legal action he brought against her.

"To be honest, Oprah, we sued so many people I'm sure we did."

Did he really say that? Yes he did. Individual people and their lives just didn't matter to him. They still don't. The only person who matters is Lance Armstrong. This is a man beyond redemption.